“Isabelle,” he said suddenly, “I want to tell you something.” They had been talking lightly about “that funny look in her eyes,” and Isabelle knew from the change in his manner what was coming—indeed, she had been wondering how soon it would come. Amory reached above their heads and turned out the electric light, so that they were in the dark, except for the red glow that fell through the door from the reading-room lamps. Then he began:
“I don’t know whether or not you know what you—what I’m going to say. Lordy, Isabelle—this sounds like a line, but it isn’t.”
“I know,” said Isabelle softly.
“Maybe we’ll never meet again like this—I have darned hard luck sometimes.” He was leaning away from her on the other arm of the lounge, but she could see his eyes plainly in the dark.
“You’ll meet me again—silly.” There was just the slightest emphasis on the last word—so that it became almost a term of endearment. He continued a bit huskily:
“I’ve fallen for a lot of people—girls—and I guess you have, too—boys, I mean, but, honestly, you—” he broke off suddenly and leaned forward, chin on his hands: “Oh, what’s the use—you’ll go your way and I suppose I’ll go mine.”
Silence for a moment. Isabelle was quite stirred; she wound her handkerchief into a tight ball, and by the faint light that streamed over her, dropped it deliberately on the floor. Their hands touched for an instant, but neither spoke. Silences were becoming more frequent and more delicious. Outside another stray couple had come up and were experimenting on the piano in the next room. After the usual preliminary of “chopsticks,” one of them started “Babes in the Woods” and a light tenor carried the words into the den:
“Give me your hand—
I’ll understand
We’re off to slumberland.”
Isabelle hummed it softly and trembled as she felt Amory’s hand close over hers.
“Isabelle,” he whispered. “You know I’m mad about you. You do give a darn about me.”
“Yes.”
“How much do you care—do you like any one better?”
“No.” He could scarcely hear her, although he bent so near that he felt her breath against his cheek.
“Isabelle, I’m going back to college for six long months, and why shouldn’t we—if I could only just have one thing to remember you by——”
“Close the door….” Her voice had just stirred so that he half wondered whether she had spoken at all. As he swung the door softly shut, the music seemed quivering just outside.
“Moonlight is bright,
Kiss me good night.”
What a wonderful song, she thought—everything was wonderful to-night, most of all this romantic scene in the den, with their hands clinging and the inevitable looming charmingly close. The future vista of her life seemed an unending succession of scenes like this: under moonlight and pale starlight, and in the backs of warm limousines and in low, cosy roadsters stopped under sheltering trees—only the boy might change, and this one was so nice. He took her hand softly. With a sudden movement he turned it and, holding it to his lips, kissed the palm.
“Isabelle!” His whisper blended in the music, and they seemed to float nearer together. Her breath came faster. “Can’t I kiss you, Isabelle—Isabelle?” Lips half parted, she turned her head to him in the dark. Suddenly the ring of voices, the sound of running footsteps surged toward them. Quick as a flash Amory reached up and turned on the light, and when the door opened and three boys, the wrathy and dance-craving Froggy among them, rushed in, he was turning over the magazines on the table, while she sat without moving, serene and unembarrassed, and even greeted them with a welcoming smile. But her heart was beating wildly, and she felt somehow as if she had been deprived.
It was evidently over. There was a clamor for a dance, there was a glance that passed between them—on his side despair, on hers regret, and then the evening went on, with the reassured beaux and the eternal cutting in.
At quarter to twelve Amory shook hands with her gravely, in the midst of a small crowd assembled to wish him good-speed. For an instant he lost his poise, and she felt a bit rattled when a satirical voice from a concealed wit cried:
“Take her outside, Amory!” As he took her hand he pressed it a little, and she returned the pressure as she had done to twenty hands that evening—that was all.
At two o’clock back at the Weatherbys’ Sally asked her if she and Amory had had a “time” in the den. Isabelle turned to her quietly. In her eyes was the light of the idealist, the inviolate dreamer of Joan-like dreams.
“No,” she answered. “I don’t do that sort of thing any more; he asked me to, but I said no.”
As she crept in bed she wondered what he’d say in his special delivery to-morrow. He had such a good-looking mouth—would she ever——?
“Fourteen angels were watching o’er them,” sang Sally sleepily from the next room.
“Damn!” muttered Isabelle, punching the pillow into a luxurious lump and exploring the cold sheets cautiously. “Damn!”
Carnival.
Amory, by way of the Princetonian, had arrived. The minor snobs, finely balanced thermometers of success, warmed to him as the club elections grew nigh, and he and Tom were visited by groups of upper classmen who arrived awkwardly, balanced on the edge of the furniture and talked of all subjects except the one of absorbing interest. Amory was amused at the intent eyes upon him, and, in case the visitors represented some club in which he was not interested, took great pleasure in shocking them with unorthodox remarks.
“Oh, let me see—” he said one night to a flabbergasted delegation, “what club do you represent?”
With visitors from Ivy and Cottage and Tiger Inn he played the “nice, unspoilt, ingenuous boy” very much at ease and quite unaware of the object of the call.
When the fatal morning arrived, early in March, and the campus became a document in hysteria, he slid smoothly into Cottage with Alec Connage and watched his suddenly neurotic class with much wonder.
There were fickle groups that jumped from club to club; there were friends of two or three days who announced tearfully and wildly that they must join the same club, nothing should separate them; there were snarling disclosures of long-hidden grudges as the Suddenly Prominent remembered snubs of freshman year. Unknown men were elevated into importance when they received certain coveted bids; others who were considered “all set” found that they had made unexpected enemies, felt themselves stranded and deserted, talked wildly of leaving college.
In his own crowd Amory saw men kept out for wearing green hats, for being “a damn tailor’s dummy,” for having “too much pull in heaven,” for getting drunk one night “not like a gentleman, by God,” or for unfathomable secret reasons known to no one but the wielders of the black balls.
This orgy of sociability culminated in a gigantic party at the Nassau Inn, where punch was dispensed from immense bowls, and the whole down-stairs became a delirious, circulating, shouting pattern of faces and voices.
“Hi, Dibby—‘gratulations!”
“Goo’ boy, Tom, you got a good bunch in Cap.”
“Say, Kerry——”
“Oh,